By Ray Hickson
Trainer Matthew Smith has no doubt there’s plenty of talent under the bonnet of lightly raced gelding Winston Hills and just hopes he gets the chance to show it at Warwick Farm on Wednesday.
The five-year-old made his debut back in November 2022 but has been sparingly raced since then largely due to a leg injury last year that saw him on the sidelines for almost 11 months.
Racing returns to Warwick Farm on Wednesday.Credit: Getty
He’s now had two runs back and Smith would like to see how high he can climb.
“He’s a nice horse. It’d be nice to get a full prep out of him, half a dozen runs, and see where he’s at,” Smith said.
“He had an injury to his leg, he knocked his tendon and it wouldn’t settle down so we put him out in the paddock.
“It wasn’t bad or anything, just annoying, and in the finish I said to the owner we’ll just put him out and he’ll be right.”
Winston Hills made a stunning return to racing at Canterbury almost a month ago as he picked his way through the field from last and charged away to win.
It was a different story at Randwick on Boxing Day when he landed just behind the leaders but jockey Jason Collett wasn’t able to find any gaps until the race was all over as he finished fourth.
Smith would like to think that won’t happen to Winston Hills in the TAB Handicap (1400m) as he’s drawn past the middle of the field and said it could be an advantage come the last race of the day.
He said he’ll leave it to Collett to assess where he needs to be, confident the horse can adapt to whatever tactic the jockey wants to employ.
“I think he’s pretty versatile. He can jump well, he can come from behind,” he said.
“He went back in a quick run race [first-up] and got over the top of them and the other day he box-seated and would have won if he’d got out.
“I’m really happy with him, he just needs to get a bit of luck in running from the draw. He’s well above average, I think he’s shown that, and he’s good enough to win the race.”
